My Pedalboard is Under Development...

[ozboomer]

Well, folks, I'm looking to go "back to the future" (or something) and am looking at building/buying some sort of simple pedalboard.

Now, I don't have a huge collection of pedals/stompboxes/wotevers... and I certainly don't intend to go crazy with 'em, as most of my playing is at home and into the computer, so VST effects will take care of most things... but I would still like to get something organized for the "core" effects that I might use when I DO play through my amp...

...but before I go too crazy with this, I have a couple of... "technology" questions, I suppose you'd call them...

Here are the pedals I'm currently using (I have yet to decide about an overdrive -style pedal, 'coz I don't play that style too much):-

Listing them out (right-to-left, in signal order):-

• Home-made (JohnH-style JFET) booster
  
• Boss PSM-5 Master Switch
  
• Crossfire TRM-507 Tremolo
  
• Boss FRV-1 Reverb
  
• Boss RC-2 Loop Station
  

Now, I always thought, that if you ran a compact pedal from a power supply, it would somehow disable the internal battery connection... but if someone pulled the plug on the power supply, the pedals would "fail over" to the internal battery, so your sound was not interrupted... but none of the commercial units I have here work that way -- If the power supply is plugged-in but turned off, nothing will work (does that also mean the internal circuitry that turns a unit on/off with insertion of a cable is also disabled?)... However, if the same commercial units are powered by battery alone, they are all "on" (in a stand-by mode, if you like.. draining battery power)... and will switch their effects on/off with a foot pedal press. Is my memory being crazy or has the "fail over" action been removed, compared to the last time I used pedals extensively in the early/mid 1980s?

Also, as far as pedalboards and pedal mounting is concerned... The main way pedals are "fixed" onto/into pedalboards these days seem to be with velcro strips or by having moulded/exact-fit "compartments" for each pedal in the pedalboards. Near as I can see, this means you have to choose between marring your pedals (with self-adhesive velcro strips) or you have to restrict your choice of pedals as they will need to "fit" the compartments in the board. Are there any other "non-invasive" methods that people use to fix their pedals in position on their pedalboards?

I'm basically scoping-out some options at the moment, y'see... and would be interested to know how some of our Nutz like to do these things...

Thanks.

[newey]

Oz-

Plugging in a power supply disconnects the battery power, on every pedal I've ever used. My power supply doesn't have an "off" switch, and I'd have to move a couple of amps to unplug it- which I'm not willing to do after only one cup of coffee this morning.

But I'll guarantee you that unplugging it or turning it off, while leaving the DC power cord plugged into the pedal, will not put you back on battery power.

Absent some sort of fancy digital "power-sensing" circuitry, how would the pedal know whether the AC was disconnected or not?

Velcro works pretty well for me. I don't worry about the glue on the back; it's a stompbox, it's going to get stomped on and eventually it will look like hell anyway, so what's a little glue residue on the back?

Besides, there's a product called "Goof-Off™" (another is "Goo-B-Gone™") which removes the gluey mess pretty well if you ever need to redo the velcro.

Most of my pedals are still velcro'd down, but lately I have been using this new stuff, I think it's from 3M, that's like a plastic velcro. I forget what it's called. The 2 halves of it lock together with a positive "click" and can't be "ripped free" like velcro. Downside is that it's tough to reposition the pedal if you ever need to do so.

EDIT:Here's the stuff I mean- 3M"Dual Lock"

www.shop3m.com/3m-dual-lock-reclosable-fasteners-c2m4lmqlvb.html

[ashcatlt]

Some people use zip ties.

The DC power jack on most pedals is a NC switched jack. The "failover" happens there. If you unplug the DC connector at the pedal end it'll switch to battery power. Unplugging the other end of the DC power will just remove power.

[JohnH]

My pedals take their chances in an old laptop case. I don't put many together at a time and its usually one of two arrangements:

My traditional pedal chain is a Boss tuner pedal, overdrive du-jour (either a JH design or a Bad Monkey) and a Digitech delay (which also does chorus and looping and with suitable settings, can be mistaken for extra reverb if needed).

My other set up is a small Zoom G2nu mfx unit which is capable of everything, but I prefer the drive sounds I get from the Bad Monkey, so that goes before it.

Power is a 1A 9V wall wart, and a daisy-chain wire. One thing I do with the wire is to wrap any unused connectors in tape, otherwise you have exposed +9V plug barrels rattling around pedals with grounded cases. This is an implication of the centre-negative convention of pedal power adapters, which is one of the top 10 worst design decisions of all time.

But I actually quite like how you can leave it all plugged together, and just unplugging the wall wart switches it all off, without then draining batteries.

With the laptop case, I can just grab that and go, and it has all the cords as well. Thats what I take to rehearsals just with a guitar if I'm on the train, or with an amp if I can take the car.
cheers
John

[ozboomer]

A couple of questions about the use of the velcro material, please folks...

• Most of the pedals I have (Boss) are rubber-backed to some degree. How does the self-adhesive on the velcro work on the rubber?! Should I build-up the non-rubber portion on the bottom of the pedals with some sort of packing and try to get the velcro on THAT?
  
  
• There's some talk from the manufacturers of some of the velcro to NOT use the self-adhesive tape on painted surfaces. Does this mean I should only use the velcro on bare wood (or sealed wood, at least)? I can see how they'd be worried about the paint (enamel or acrylic) pulling-off 'coz the adhesive is stronger than the bond between the paint and wood/metal, etc.
  
  
• The conventional means of attaching these pedals seems to be to have the 'fluff' on the board and the 'hooks' on the pedals. This means the pedals can also be more-or-less fixed to some sort of carpeted floor, for example... but in this case, if you use the pedals on a polished desk or some smooth surface, the hooks would dance all over the surface and may actually scratch it (if it were a glass tabletop, for instance). Is there any 'merit' to actually going the non-conventional route and applying the fluff/hooks 'backwards' (that is, mount the hooks on the board and the fluff on the pedals)?
  
  
• In any event, would you apply the 'pedal half' of the velcro as a full-height strip on either side of the base of the pedal... or would 'corner patches' be enough? I understand the shear strength of the stuff is what we like, so it would be best to use full-height strips... but I'm just askin' what people do
  

Thanks for any thoughts, folks...

[newey]

I've never paid any mind to whether the hooks were on the pedal or on the board. I find it hard to believe that the hooks could scratch glass, or anything else for that matter.

I use one strip of velcro across the top and one across the bottom of the pedal. I don't know whether the "4 corners" you suggest would be enough. With the "Dual-Lock™" stuff you don't need as much, with that I just use two small squares, top and bottom.

Either way, you need more than one point of attachment to prevent the pedal from wanting to rotate.

I have a couple of Boss pedals and no problems with the rubber backing, the velcro adheres fine. As far as a painted board, yeah, the adhesive can certainly pull paint up so a painted surface is probably not a great idea. The board I'm using has a natural poly finish which seems impervious to the velcro, at least so far, but I haven't removed any velcro from it after any length of time, just after a moment of adhesion when I mis-positioned a piece.

My only real advice is to leave yourself a bit of extra room between pedals so as to allow for changing the order or for adding a different pedal in a different-sized case. I put mine too close together, then had to redo a lot of the velcro when the order was not to my liking, which meant sacrificing a lot of the velcro as it can't be reused after peeling it off.

[JFrankParnell]

I would prolly put the hooks on the floor board; having the fluff facing up would tend to attract dust and dirt that would be hard to get out and look bad. Now, if you take your pedal off and use it on a glass table (uhh...) you'll just polish your table.

You can put 2 strips, horizontally across your board. And on each pedal put 2 strips vertically. Now you've got options for changing pedals around. If you dont think you'll need to change the position vertically, I think either 4 corners or 2 horizontal strips on the pedal would be fine. Are you gigging?

The trick to sticking velcro in the right place: take the backing off the piece and put it down on the velcro very lightly, so it's barely hooked. Then stick the object (pedal) down onto the exposed sticky. Hopefully you can get the sticky to stick enough but not hook into the velcro so much that it pulls the sticky off the pedal before you can apply pressure to the sticky and get it stucked down real good.

[jmartyg]

Hi,
I have tried velcro in the past and i've found that after a while, the whole thing gets gummed up and doesn't 'velcro' very well anymore. Both the fuzzy and hook parts were clogged up. I have since drilled holes through my board (which is just a piece of scrap plywood, 12"x20" or so) and zip tied everything on, including a power bar.

I have used the same effects for near a decade, so the permanent-ness of zip ties and drilled holes didn't really bother me. Last week I added another pedal to the chain, and I think it took me 30 minutes to measure, cut, drill, zip and twist tie everything in to make it hold tight and look neat.

also, when playing where there is a good risk of muddy or snow covered shoes, i put the whole thing in a garbage bag, tie it off, and poke holes at either end for the cables. pedals stay nice and clean while the grime stays on the outside of the bag.

[ozboomer]

I'm at the stage now where I'm going to apply the velcro to the board... but depending on who I talk to, I'm getting differing thoughts on the way I should layout the board...

The ideal would be to have a 'mat' of velcro 'fluff' on the board... but such a sheet seems impossible to find. Maybe I could use a substitute material... but I've tried things like felt and carpet and they all seem too fluffy somehow.. and plain (poly-)cotton, etc doesn't provide any 'stick'.

So, this seems to dictate that I will need to use strips of velcro 'fluff' across the board.

In this case, the options seem to be:-

...where:

Option	Attachment	Horizontal Movement	Vertical Movement
1	Strong	Fine	Coarse
2	Nominal	Fine	Coarse
3	Nominal	Coarse	Fine
4	Strong	Coarse	Fine

...and o'course, using vertical strips means I'll use a LOT of velcro, given the pedalboard is the conventional style, of being much wider than it is high.

From what I expect/understand of the use I'll make of the pedalboard, I would think I'd want a strong attachment to the board and I'd like to easily move the pedals horizontally -- at least, I think that's what I'll need. So, that means I should choose option 1.

...but I'd be interested to know how you've set-up your board, if you have, in fact, used a velcro-type attachment system.. and which layout of velcro you've used.

Thanks again, all...

[newey]

OZ-

I'm using #1, it works fine. I put exactly zero thought into this before doing it, it just seemed like it looked right that way.

As I mentioned earlier, my boards are about half the regular velcro™ and the newer stuff is held on with the 3M "Dual-Lock" plastic stuff, whatever they call it.

Currently, the board is my Loop pedal, with the loop going out to a Boss CS-2 compressor/sustainer first, next is a Line6 ToneCore Otto Filter, then a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive, then a DOD FX60 Stereo Chorus.

This all is fed into an EH .22 Caliber "Amp-in-a-Stompbox" which feeds a Peavey 2X10" cab. The little SS EH amp works real well with pedals so long as you keep the gain knob down in the "mildly crunchy" territory.

[ozboomer]

Apr 11, 2011 22:09:54 GMT -5 newey said:

I'm using #1, it works fine. I put exactly zero thought into this before doing it, it just seemed like it looked right that way.

...and I always go the other way and over-analyze to death -- ever the engineer, I'm afraid

For instance, I'm looking at No. 4 at the moment... even IF! it requires a stack more vertical strips, it means we have 2x large strips of hooks hanging onto the fluff... and as they're not too greatly separated, that means we don't have the 'lever arm' advantage of No. 1, so it will take more effort to *twist* the pedal off. Heh.. something about 'moment of inertia' or 'bending moment' floating around in the back of my mind, methinks...(!)

This all is fed into an EH .22 Caliber "Amp-in-a-Stompbox" which feeds a Peavey 2X10" cab. The little SS EH amp works real well with pedals so long as you keep the gain knob down in the "mildly crunchy" territory.

Hmm... Interesting gadget, that EH .22 Caliber... Only for the fact it needs electricity, it might be a better thing to have handy than the Ruby amp I was going to build, what with having more grunt... but I still want something battery operated... hmmm...

...as I *krink!* my neck and push this thread back on-topic...(!)

[ozboomer]

As always, I've done lots of nutting-out and still decided I couldn't make-up my mind... so, of course, I built a testing rig, viz:-

To summarize all my experimenting today, let's just say this...

• vertical strips on a pedal, when placed on tightly-spaced vertical strips is nigh-on impossible to move; it's amazingly difficult to remove the 'pedal' at all, so that's probably TOO strong (as well as taking-up over 7m/22-feet of velcro strip).
  
  
• vertical strips on a pedal, when placed on 'normally' spaced, horizontal strips, gives some strength but not a lot; having a number of contact points that are only 2cm/0.75-inch square just isn't enough.
  
  
• horizontal strips on a pedal, when placed on tightly-spaced vertical strips is kind-of tough to move and is pretty strong; not really a bad option.
  
  
• horizontal strips on a pedal, when placed on 'normally' spaced, horizontal strips, gives good strength and is pretty hard to take off; this is probably the way I'll go.

So, it's working-out more-or-less as expected... but there's nothing like doing something physical to help make the theory more tangible (and believable(!)).

The main things to come from going through the exercise was to realize how really STRONG the velcro can be (in the vertical on vertical arrangement)... and that to add an extra strip that's at least 50mm/2-inches long goes a long way to increasing the strength of the connection.

Now, to do the layout/striping of the 'real' board and pedals...

[sumgai]

ozzy,

You do realize that Velcro^™ has a nap to it, yes? Think of nap as akin to the grain of a wood.

When the nap is lined up between the hook and loop pieces, the strength is quite remarkable. When you turn one side to a 90^° angle, the strength weakens by about half, give or take. This explains why many players are not fully happy with their pedalboard setups, feeling that the stuff weakens too quickly, or never was very strong at all.

As you found, the best solution is to spend a bit more cash, and set everything in the same direction. Although horizontal to horizontal is also a good bet, and may not require as much material - that'd have to be experiemented with.

HTH





sumgai

[ozboomer]

Well, it's done... at least, to the timber and velcro stages.

The overriding thing with this lil' project was TheKISSPrinciple(tm)... and, for what I want to do with the major effects I like to use, this will suit me nicely, thank you.. and it cost me about nothing for the plywood and little bit of polyurethane.. and about $10 for some cheapo velcro, so I can't complain about that...

Here's a photo:

Some notes:

• The silver box is the prototype booster, which ultimately, will probably go off-board and onto a belt or sumfin', a la the Boss FA-1, so I'm not too worried about the space it takes up at the moment. Suffice to say, without it there, I can easily cope with probably 5 effect pedals (or 2 extras on what I have now) - plenty for how I'm going to do things..
  
  
• The 'return' lead from the Loop Station back to the Power Supply/Master Switch will shortly be replaced with a lead that has right-angle plugs (fingers' crossed it arrives before Easter), so that will make things a little less awkward. It also means I can put the board 'on edge', next to the desk where the computer is (which is out of shot a good ways) -- so no more pulling things apart and re-assembling when I want to move between using the amp and using the computer for some recording.
  
  
• The 'daisy chain' power plugs are going to be cable-tied or similar (and they have their protective clear plastic covers, so no shorting-out).
  
  
• You can see both the 'wall wart' and an in-line off/on switch that I wired into a short extension lead, so I can leave the 'wall wart' plugged-in all the time - so I shouldn't have any battery worries with all this.
  
  
• The space above is likely to be used for some smaller units, eventually, for example, I'll put my TU-12 tuner up there...
  

So, overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, 'specially considering my simple requirements and my minimal $$$ outlay. I might eventually do something with putting it on a wedge/ramp support thing... and/or I might build it into a box or something for some protection... but I don't drag it around outside the house much, so that's not a big priority...

Off I toddle to go nutz a mite... 1-e-and-ah... 2-e-and-ah...


John

[flateric]

put it on legs, 1 inch at back, 1/4 inch at front, drill holes to take all the wiring underneath out of the way.